Indicting Israel

An in-depth study of New York Times' coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The New York Times remains one of the most influential newspapers in the world. Its print and web versions are read and relied upon by millions, including highly-educated news consumers and opinion-shapers in America and around the globe. Dubbed the "newspaper of record," The Times sets the topic and the tone for many other print and electronic media outlets. Its editorial decisions – what it deems most newsworthy, what it chooses to ignore or consign to back pages and how it frames the stories it covers – substantially shape the news landscape and, in turn, public perception of events. Given this, its presentation of the complex Palestinian-Israeli conflict is obviously of great importance and any pattern of bias must be taken seriously.

Camera’s investigation of New York Times coverage between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2011 reveals empirically that there is real cause for concern. The dominant finding of the study is a disproportionate, continuous, embedded indictment of Israel that dominates both news and commentary sections. Israeli views are downplayed while Palestinian perspectives, especially criticism of Israel, are amplified and even promoted. The net effect is an overarching message, woven into the fabric of the coverage, of Israeli fault and responsibility for the conflict.

With other media outlets emulating The Times, the distortion is greatly magnified.

When The Times presents criticism of Israel more than twice as often as it does criticism of the Palestinians, when it features the Palestinian perspective on the peace process nearly twice as often as it does the Israeli perspective, when it consistently omits the context of Israel's blockade of Gaza, when it rehashes the actions of the Israeli military aboard a Turkish ship but leaves out the precipitating violence by pro-Palestinian activists, and when it de-emphasizes Palestinian aggression and incitement while headlining Israeli defensive strikes, readers can be profoundly deceived about the realities. And when other media outlets emulate The Times, the effect of the distortion is greatly magnified.

Such negative and skewed treatment of the Jewish state is not new. It follows a long history of The New York Times distorting the news to avoid the appearance of espousing so-called Jewish causes. In her book Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper, Northeastern University journalism professor Laurel Leff described how The New York Times deliberately downplayed news about Nazi persecution and the genocide of European Jews. According to Leff, the decision to avoid presenting Jews as victims of Hitler was consciously made by the publisher to ensure the newspaper would not appear "too Jewish."

Former Times Executive Editor Max Frankel said the same in a 2001 article, in which he lamented the "staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler's methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II..." He noted that publisher Arthur Hayes Sulzberger "went to great lengths to avoid having The Times branded a 'Jewish newspaper.’”

The same mind-set continued to shape the news years later. Columbia University journalism professor Ari L. Goldman, a former New York Times reporter, recounted how his dispatches about the 1991 violence by African-Americans against Jews in Crown Heights were altered to fit the "frame" preferred by editors, who transformed them into stories about a purported race war between blacks and whites instead of the anti-Jewish attacks that Goldman had witnessed and described.

A similar pattern of minimizing threats to Jews was documented in Camera’s 2002 study, "The New York Times Skews Israeli-Palestinian Crisis," which exposed the newspaper's distorted emphasis on alleged wrongdoing by the Jewish state during a period of unprecedented terrorism against Israel. While amplifying news of Israeli military responses, it ignored or minimized Palestinian attacks.' The message was clear-Israel was culpable.

Ten years later, the message is the same.

The Times’ Study

Camera’s study examines all news and editorial content in the print edition of the newspaper directly relating to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As has been its habit over many years, The New York Times made the Palestinian-Israeli conflict a central focus of its foreign coverage during the six months studied. This was not a period of extraordinary crisis and turmoil in Israel, yet nearly 200 news stories dealt with Palestinian-Israeli strife. There were 20 opinion pieces over a period of nine months regarding the conflict.

Twice as many articles were critical of Israel.

Criticism of Israel is found to be a pervasive motif, continuously woven into the reportage. The Jewish state is criticized more than twice as often as the Palestinians. Of 275 passages in the news pages classified as criticism according to the study's stringent criteria, 187 were critical of Israel; fewer than half as many – 88 – were critical of the Palestinians. Some of these criticisms were expressed in the voices of the journalists themselves, often in violation of professional norms against editorializing in news reporting. Journalists weighed in 21 times with hostile views of Israel, and only 9 times with criticism of the Palestinians.

But the broader numerical discrepancy in criticism does not by itself tell the entire story. The study, therefore, zooms in on specific topics within the newspaper's coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to reveal a consistent double standard in the Times' rendering of events.

Among the topics frequently discussed on the news pages and analyzed in the study during the second half of 2011 were:

The Peace Process and Palestinian Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI)

Palestinian points of view about peace talks and the Palestinian Authority's unilateral campaign for recognition at the United Nations significantly overshadowed Israeli points of view, with 106 passages presenting a mainstream Palestinian perspective on the topic but only 59 passages presenting a mainstream Israeli viewpoint.

Although both sides obviously held strong opinions on the peace process, as well as on the merits or demerits of the Palestinian resort to unilateralism, the newspaper did not present each side's views as equally newsworthy and chose instead to highlight Palestinian opinion.

The Mavi Marmara

The newspaper's reporting about the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists, lacked crucial context and relayed criticism in a lopsided manner. Of 37 articles that referenced Israel's use of force on the ship, only 8 mentioned the activists' violence that necessitated the use of firearms by Israeli commandos. Twenty passages conveyed criticism of Israel's actions relating to the Mavi Marmara incident, and only 5 conveyed criticism of the pro-Palestinian activists on board.

Even when describing a U.N. report that criticized both sides in roughly equal measure, The New York Times referred to the report's criticism of Israel 12 times, but only mentioned its criticism of the activists 4 times.

The Gaza "Siege"

Essential context was likewise missing from the newspaper's references to what it described as an Israeli "siege" on the Gaza Strip. Only 6 of 37 articles mentioning Israel's border policies and naval blockade on Gaza noted Israel's stated goal of preventing weapons from entering the Gaza Strip. And even fewer reminded readers that weapons in that territory are frequently fired into Israel.

Violence

The Times’ coverage of violence was marked by a double standard that highlighted Israeli attacks and de-emphasized Palestinian ones. Twelve headlines explicitly mentioned Palestinian fatalities; none explicitly referred to Israeli deaths, even though 14 Israelis were killed during the study period. There was also disproportionate emphasis on vandalism and non-deadly arson by radical Israeli settlers – 11 articles – in comparison to Palestinian stoning attacks that resulted in deaths – 4 articles.

Incitement

Least newsworthy of all, according to The New York Times, was the steady stream of anti-coexistence, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric by the Palestinian leadership. Although this incitement perpetuates the conflict, only one article discussed it, and that article focused on criticism of those who chronicle the Palestinian hate rhetoric nearly as much as it did on the rhetoric itself. While Israeli actions were routinely cast as obstacles to peace, the Palestinian Authority's refusal to recognize a Jewish state was never described as an obstacle.

The Opinion Pages

On the newspaper's opinion pages, unsigned editorials consistently blamed Israel for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And despite assertions by The New York Times that "Op-Ed editors tend to look for articles that cover subjects and make arguments that have not been articulated elsewhere in the editorial space," this anti-Israel view was mirrored throughout the opinion pages, with columns and guest Op-Eds overwhelmingly in accord with The New York Times' editorial board. Over a period of nine months, from July 2011 through March 2012, 6 of 7 editorials, 5 of 6 columns, and 4 of 7 Op-Eds about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict predominantly criticized Israel. None predominantly criticized the Palestinians.

Not only were the opinion pages unbalanced, but they heavily reflected extremist views by radical anti-Israel activists. For example, the newspaper published a column characterizing Israel's tolerance toward homosexuals as a devious ploy to conceal abuses of Palestinian human rights.

Conclusions

The newspaper's ethical code assures readers that "the goal of The New York Times is to cover the news as impartially as possible." But Arthur Brisbane, who was The New York Times' public editor (ombudsman) during the study period, acknowledged that politics do, in fact, influence the newspaper's output. In his farewell column, he described a worldview of "political and cultural progressivism" that "virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times." As a result, the newspaper treats certain topics "more like causes than news subjects."

This study leaves no doubt that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one such topic. Although the conflict is a matter of great controversy, with loud voices on all sides seeking to make their case, only one side's concerns are promoted in The Times, while the opposing side is marginalized. This clear pattern is far from a mere academic concern. More exposure for a viewpoint gives it more influence. By force of repetition, then, the Palestinian narrative that indicts Israel for the conflict becomes more familiar to, and as a result, more accepted by, readers of The New York Times.

In diminishing the Israeli perspective, The New York Times sends another unambiguous message: Laurel Leff explained when describing the newspaper's minimization of the Holocaust that readers at the time were led to believe, "If The New York Times doesn't think this is an important story, why should we?"

Indicting Israel aims to set the record straight on the newspaper's partisan, unprofessional coverage of the Jewish state. It provides detailed evidence that allows readers convincingly to challenge the newspaper's biased journalism and to ask, "If The New York Times doesn't take its own reputation for journalistic integrity seriously, why should we?"

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 11

(9)
SAM CORIAT,
December 18, 2012 2:29 AM

By and large evil forces are against the Chosen People

The international newsmedia fails to report the constant terrorist acts against the unarmed civilians. On the other hand the UN is also bias, last year PM Netanyahu called this organization the "theatre of the Absurd" where impunity is legalized and human rights are nothing.

(8)
Zamira Rajchgod,
December 17, 2012 3:48 PM

Why still have following?

Please have someone explain to me & others why the NYT is still so popular? Is there no alternative? I don't get IT!

(7)
Anonymous,
December 17, 2012 3:05 PM

there are those people who are so narrowly focused in life that the important issue for them are the crossword puzzle and life sections that the Times offers.

(6)
Hershel Nachum,
December 17, 2012 12:48 AM

Time to scuttle Oslo.

When you open a discussion of a two state solution you logically get the power broker vs the underdog. If you scuttle Oslo and state this is one land, you take as much as you can and deem the rest for borders with established countries like Jordan and Egypt. The Arab population would naturally reunite with their brothers and problem solved with a safe and defensible borders for Israel and return under no certain circumstance Jerusalem to Israel and the Jewish people.
I f you continue with the above Oslo two state solution, never expect any good from the media and the rest of the world.

(5)
Avram Kallisky,
December 16, 2012 10:13 PM

An Old Story

During the late forties, in the pre-Israel period, I was a senior at the Bronx High School of Science taking a Journalism course for my English requirement. My teacher, Miss Dorothy Frank, had been a reporter at the old World, which later became the World-Telegram.
She taught us how The NYT buried news, and recommended that we study the NY Herald Tribune to learn how to properly place news.
Continually pro-Israel news was on the next to last page of the first section, while pro-Arab news would land above the fold on Page 1.
The NYT leopard has not changed its spots.

(4)
Ari,
December 16, 2012 8:57 PM

Journalistic bias or corruption?

In a comparable situation in any business, when the reporting goes against all norms of objective and fair practices, the culprit would be identified fast as pure and simple, outright, corruption. Who, how, since when, with what financing? all questions can find answers with a reasonable probability. It is the responsibility of all of us who are outraged by such "journalisitc" practices to spread the word that this behavior can have no source other than corruption.

(3)
Anonymous,
December 16, 2012 5:03 PM

The descent of the NY Times

From the time of my childhood, the 1930's, until the end of the 20th century, I always thought of the NY Times as the arbiter of sound political and social attitudes. I have subscribed for years but now ONLY because there is no alternative. Their editorial positions and columns generally "sicken" me. Have they changed so much, or have I?

Stanley Tee,
December 17, 2012 1:50 PM

And yet you still subscribe?

There IS an alternative to subscribing to the NY Times. Not subscribing! Do not support them.

Sam Coriat,
December 18, 2012 2:43 AM

Let us cancel subscriptions NOW

The NYT will fall easily into Muslim hands at this rate.
The free world is becoming smaller as the terrorist Muslims continue their expansion, soon we will see Muslim Lords in the British Parliament imposing Muslim laws.

(2)
Benny Zee,
December 16, 2012 4:23 PM

A so-called Jewish owned newspaper...a "Shandi"!

A newspaper owned by Jews, and is ashamed of it, should be shunned! I urinate on the New Yorks Times!

(1)
jack zuckerman,
December 16, 2012 3:46 PM

its a shame

one way to combat the obvious bias is not to subscribe or read the NY times. I used the read that slanted anti Israeli newsaper and now avoid the pain by avoiding it.

This year during Chanukah I will be on a wilderness survival trip, and it will be very difficult to properly celebrate the holiday. I certainty won't be able to bring along a Menorah.

So if I am going to celebrate only one day of Chanukah, which is the most significant?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

If a person can only celebrate one day of Chanukah, he should celebrate the first day.

This is similar to a case where a person is in prison, and the authorities agree to permit him to go to synagogue one day. The law is that he should go at the first opportunity, and not wait for a more important day like the High Holidays.

The reason is because one should not allow the opportunity of a mitzvah to pass. Moreover, it is quite conceivable that circumstances will later change and allow for additional observance. Therefore, we do not let the first chance pass. (Sources: Code of Jewish Law OC 90, Mishnah Berurah 28.)

As an important aside, Chanukah candles must be lit in (or at the entrance to) a home rather than out of doors. Thus, you should not light in actual "wilderness," but only after you've pitched your tent for the night.

There may be another reason why the first night is the one to focus on. Chanukah is celebrated for eight days to commemorate the one-day supply of oil that miraculously burned for eight days. But if you think about it, since there was enough oil to burn naturally for one night, nothing miraculous happened on that first night! So why shouldn't Chanukah be just seven days?!

There are many wonderful answers given to this question, highlighting the special aspect of the first day. Here are a few:

1) True, the miracle of the oil did not begin until the second day, and lasted for only seven days. But the Sages designated the first day of Chanukah in commemoration of the miraculous military victory.

2) Having returned to the Temple and found it in shambles, the Jews had no logical reason to think they would find any pure oil. The fact that the Maccabees didn't give up hope, and then actually found any pure oil at all, is in itself a miracle.

3) The Sages chose Chanukah, a festival that revolves around oil's ability to burn, as the time to teach the fundamental truth that even so-called "natural" events take place only because God wants them to.

The Talmudic Sage Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa expressed this truth in explaining a miracle that occurred in his own home. Once, his daughter realized that she had lit the Shabbos candles with vinegar instead of oil. Rabbi Chanina calmed her, saying, "Why are you concerned! The One Who commanded oil to burn, can also command vinegar to burn!" The Talmud goes on to say that those Shabbos lights burned bright for many hours (Taanit 25a).

To drive this truth home, the Sages decreed that Chanukah be observed for eight days: The last seven to commemorate the miracle of the Menorah, and the first to remind us that even the “normal” burning of oil is only in obedience to God's wish.

In closing, I'm not sure what's stopping you from celebrating more than one day? At a minimum, you can light one candle sometime during the evening, and that fulfills the mitzvah of Chanukah - no “official Menorah” necessary. With so much joy to be had, why limit yourself to one night only?!

In 165 BCE, the Maccabees defeated the Greek army and rededicated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Finding only one jar of pure oil, they lit the Menorah, which miraculously burned for eight days. Also on this day -- 1,100 years earlier -- Moses and the Jewish people completed construction of the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary that accompanied them during 40 years of wandering in the desert. The Tabernacle was not dedicated, however, for another three months; tradition says that the day of Kislev 25 was then "compensated" centuries later -- when the miracle of Chanukah occurred and the Temple was rededicated. Today, Jews around the world light a Chanukah menorah, to commemorate the miracle of the oil, and its message that continues to illuminate our lives today.

A person who utilizes suffering to arouse himself in spiritual matters will find consolation. He will recognize that even though the suffering was difficult for him, it nevertheless helped him for eternity.

When you see yourself growing spiritually through your suffering, you will even be able to feel joy because of that suffering.

They established these eight days of Chanukah to give thanks and praise to Your great Name(Siddur).

Jewish history is replete with miracles that transcend the miracle of the Menorah. Why is the latter so prominently celebrated while the others are relegated to relative obscurity?

Perhaps the reason is that most other miracles were Divinely initiated; i.e. God intervened to suspend the laws of nature in order to save His people from calamity.

The miracle of the Menorah was something different. Having defeated the Seleucid Greek invaders, the triumphant Jews entered the Sanctuary. There they found that they could light the Menorah for only one day, due to a lack of undefiled oil. Further, they had no chance of replenishing the supply for eight days. They did light the Menorah anyway, reasoning that it was best to do what was within their ability to do and to postpone worrying about the next day until such worry was appropriate. This decision elicited a Divine response and the Menorah stayed lit for that day and for seven more.

This miracle was thus initiated by the Jews themselves, and the incident was set down as a teaching for all future generations: concentrate your efforts on what you can do, and do it! Leave the rest to God.

While even our best and most sincere efforts do not necessarily bring about miracles, the teaching is nevertheless valid. Even the likelihood of failure in the future should not discourage us from any constructive action that we can take now.

Today I shall...

focus my attention on what it is that I can do now, and do it to the best of my ability.

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